Veni, Vidi, Scripsi

August in Review

Here we are at the 72nd monthly review post, and it still lacks in substance to the same degree that it did nearly six years ago.

Ah well, it is a habit by this point. I even created a category for these posts. I just have to go back and add that category to the first 62 monthly review posts. I’ll get to that some day. Now to come up with something about the site.

Well, there is the turning of the seasons… last month’s spam was all about Brazilian email list scams, this month it turned to Guild Wars 2 gold selling sites. Always a sign of change.

My email inbox however seems to be primarily devoted to WoW related scams. I will be happy for Mists of Panderia to ship if only because the phishing scams will have to find something besides panda beta access scams to send me. I am at the level of more than one a day on those right now, all to an email address that isn’t associated with my Blizzard account. Always amusing.

I won something in a contest! A Warp Drive Active Shirt! I still haven’t been to any sort of EVE Online event where it would impress people however.

And speaking of EVE, I started down the training path to get my alt flying a Hulk. As with most such ventures, it began with mining in the modest Bantam frigate and the oddly shaped Osprey cruiser. Also, our corp, the Twilight Cadre was founded. I also wrote up a piece on how to find an agent in EVE Online (without external resources) that has become one of the most viewed posts on this site.

I received a copy of the first issue of EQuinox, the official EverQuest II magazine. It was… thin. And it had a dark elf on the cover. You would think there were no other races in EverQuest with all the play dark elves get.

Legends of Norrath was announced at SOE Fan Faire 2007. I was not there, but I listened to the presentation live while IM’ing with Darren about what we heard, which included an interesting offer from Leonai of Online Gaming Radio. I still have not actually played LoN. I am just not the collectible card game kind of person.

I purchased the Richard Garriot’s Tabula Rasa Pre-Order box, only to find that getting into the beta, as was promised on the outside of the box, was not as easy as I had hoped. You had to get access to the beta forum to get the information, and the beta forum was not letting people in!

In a strange turn of fate, I happened to take a look at PlayOn on the very day they posted their WoW Random Guild Name Generator. So I posted a quick link to it, which in turn has become my most viewed post ever. The popularity was related to some Google algorithm which put up this site on the first page of searches related to guild name generators. And so, for a year, that post has been on the top of the list in my month in review.

I also put up what would become my second most popular post for quite a while, How to Find an Agent in EVE Online. It only took CCP four years to make the whole thing less convoluted.

CCP CEO Hilmar Veigar Petursson stirred up the “why so much fantasy?” discussion about MMOs and I put out my own views, to which I now just link back whenever the discussion comes back up again.

Yes, and you can’t sig tank against a tengu with a scimitar and keep up with it. Even base sig is like 70 something and CN HMs have like 84m ER.
[I have no idea if this is true, or what it has to do with the SEO link that came with it]

Search Terms of the Month

Who still subscribes to WoW?
[A question Blizzard might have to work on soon]

pics of half open pokeballs
[Rule 34 in action I am sure]

are the asilomar conference grounds haunted?
[I have it on good authority that they are]

terry prachet noobs
[They have only read “The Color of Magic?”]

EVE Online

Life continues on in null sec, with one war ending and another beginning. This latest war seems to be taking place mostly while I am still at the office though. Or at least the fun bits. Damn Europeans. Anyway, I have shot a lot of structures lately. Well, I haven’t even done that. I have flow logistic for a lot of structure shooting, which is like being on the medical team for a miniature golf tournament. Sure, people get hurt once in a while, but do they really need reps. I was able to passive tank the POS guns last night while flying slow and in a straight line. (FC orders)

My high sec industrial alt has been plugging away. I may have to tell his tale some day. He has been on a mission.

Oh, and my main character, Wilhelm Arcturus, just celebrated his 6th year since creation this past Wednesday. That seems like a long time ago.

Guild Wars 2

It launched. It has sold a lot of boxes. A lot of people are playing it.

Just not me.

Not yet, in any case. I am going to let this settle down a bit before I jump in. Yes, I missed out on the baseball cap and the super low priced karma weapons (limit, 49 per customer) and the bans. And I probably will have to create characters with super cryptic names, since names have to be unique game-wide. But I am willing to sacrifice.

My target point: I’ll buy in when I can get a box (virtual or otherwise) for $40 or less.

It might be a long wait.

Rift

I have been spending my swords and sorcery play time in Telara for the most part, and I have been quite enjoying it. I have another character at level 50 now, so that is a warrior and a rogue.

Sanperre Level 50

Meanwhile, the instance group is coming back together in Rift and the group is just 11 levels away from 50 as well. We should be there long before Storm Legion arrives.

I might have to go work on a mage. I have one. He is level 12. It would be something to have one of each at level cap. But I have never really been a mage person. We shall see.

World of Warcraft

Despite not playing much (I have been doing Darkmoon Faire every month with a couple characters and that is about it) I did download the nearly 8 GB of data that came with the dread Patch 5.0.4. I then logged in all of my characters to consolidate pets and mounts and achievements across characters. This caused Raptr to erroneously report that I had somehow earned 75 achievements the other night. Industrious. With nearly two months left to go on my annual pass,I figured I ought to see what there was to see.

Coming Up

Next month. Well, Torchlight II launches, which I absolutely will be getting, as will Mists of Panderia, which I have no plans to purchase at all. Heck, I will be able to create a panda if I want without it. I just won’t get any new content otherwise. But I still have a lot of Cataclysm content left undone, so why bother?

There might be another expansion unlock on Fippy Darkpaw. We shall see how the vote goes this time. Gates of Discord had a hard fight. Will Omens of War face similar resistance?

Riders of Rohan rode on out of September and into October, so that will get saved for another day.

Fall is approaching, the traditional time for deep nostalgia here at TAGN. What will it involve this year?

And, finally, people who did some math up at the top of this post will realize that another regular tradition of this blog is looming next month. Now I just need to come up with a theme for it.

I did think of emulating (fancy word for stealing) your “month in review” myself, but frankly it looks like it’d be a bit of a stick to beat oneself with after a while. I will share my favorite search terms of the month from Google:

“naked charr” (They look like tigers without genitalia, as if anyone cares)

Omens of War was a relatively popular expansion. I liked it. Wall of Slaughter was the Lake of Ill Omen or Paludal Caverns of its day there for a while.

On Rift and GW2, House Bhagpuss has come to an unexpected decision. It now seems that we will be letting our Station Access pass lapse when Storm Legion arrives, making Rift our subscription game and playing that and GW2, with the SoE games available on F2P as needed. That’s a direct hit from the PSS1 debacle, plus the excellent-looking housing coming in Rift. Nothing set in stone though.

And today I ordered two more copies of GW2 so we can have two accounts each. It’s very cheap on Amazon U.K. although not under your $40 threshold ($54 in fact).

@Bhagpuss – I have seen a few people emulate, and even acknowledge me, in month in review sort of posts. But it can be a chore. I couldn’t tell you at this date why I decided it was a good idea, except that I like a bit of structure. I think it was to be a catch-all for small things I missed over the month.

I almost quit doing it at one point. And then I passed on year and started the “One Year Ago” section. That is the real reason for the whole post these days. That is 80% of the work.

But I enjoy going back and reading what happened one year, and now five years, back. So I suspect I will keep it up for the foreseeable future.